El-P

That's the best part. I have no idea why anyone bought into his shit when he was playing the benevolent purveyor of the true pro-wrestling spirit. It was not different at all from Stephy inventing women's wrestling, really. The talk that he would be the savior of the company when he would took over was always baffling to me considering his own history of burying talent and working overlong matches to feed his ego. Triple H has been great at one thing in his career : politicking. The road was straight to the top from endless years of push, marrying the boss daughter, having his protected pet promotion.... and then the guy who started the sleaze thread got hooked with a bunch of indie geeks working in Japan and made a "pissant company" and it was all spiraling down from there. And now Brother Love, who was doing impersonations on a podcast 5 years ago, is gonna "write" (aka say "Hell yeah Vince, that's good shit") NXT.

Sure, but the big difference is he's married to the family. Big fucking difference. Unless the family sells the company entirely, I can't see him doing anything.

HHH isn't a bigger pro-wrestling star than CM Punk relating to the core audience of AEW. CM Punk's return has a very distinct symbolic significance to the pro-wrestling fans. HHH is never and has never been close to anything like Hulk, including at his peak, where he was nowhere close to the Rock or Austin. Him jumping as an almost retired/past 50 would be a mindfuck for sure, but there's no way it would have the same *actual* impact as CM Punk (not to mention the 1-2 punch with Danielson). Cena, even now (I mean, part time and past his prime), for sure, because he is legit mainstream, which HHH has never been (and of course a much bigger pro-wrestling star to begin with). It's a moot point anyway, he isn't going anywhere.

Already happened. Name was CM Punk. Hunter would be both totally surrealistic and a terrible idea for obvious reasons. That said, Cody & Brandi vs Hunter & Stephy at All Out 2022 would be eazy money. And yeah, that throne trashing thingy that Cody did at the beginning of AEW... well... in retrospect...

Time for Jean-Paul Lesveque is All Elite jokes already ? He could do backstage interviews on Dark.

Awesome. Thanks.

Holy fuck ! The guy who thought Booby Roode was the go-to guy to carry TNA while turning him into a droning, boring as fuck Randy Orton-like worker. The guy who thought the infamous "AJ is having an affair with Dixie Carter" was a great way to showcase AJ Styles personality. As I'm halfway through his TNA stint, I can say without a doubt that Bruce Prichard is one hell of a crappy booker with crappy ideas about talent and angles. "We're telling a story..." NXT ? More like YSD (in like, yesterday) It is. I wonder what Stephy thinks of all of this...

I'm not as active or present on the board these days so I just noticed you got into this new project. Thank you so much for this, awesome stuff to read.

It depends from the worker. Bull did not look like the safest worker for sure. Aja always looked stiff but really safe. Hotta was another matter, but I did nor use her as an example of good work either. I highly doubt AEW would pick up someone with such a bad rep. She sucks, she never was a star in WWE despite her push, the only reason she's there is because of her family. And that's also the reason why I doubt she'll ever get sacked. She's 37, she has been working for 7 years now and she's godawful and dangerous. She's not gonna improve at this stage. And yeah, it really wasn't "stiff and intense looking" like the Twitter douchebag says, it looked like idiotic uncooperative bullshit. Koji Kitao level of incompetence and unprofessionalism. Where's Takada when you need him ?

These people are just douchebags. I'm surprised this idiot did not play the racist card to boot. Someone should point to this dumbfuck that Aja Kong worked stiff, watch her destroy Hotta's hand, that Awesome Kong worked stiff, watch her pulverize Gail Kim. Both were great workers. Nia Jaxx is a shitty and dangerous worker, always has been and really only became worse. She peaked at Eagle Sawaii's level (faint praise) and is sub-Crusher Maedomari's level now.

Total WCW in spring of 96 vibes, indeed.

Basic AW trying to get Internet Cookie Points by being Da Wokest (see also : "bouh AEW racist, no colored people in main events bouhouh"). Why even post usual Twitter garbage like this to begin with (the point would be why even look at Twitter to begin with, it's the sewer of humanity really) ? Nia is complete trash, has been pretty much since the beginning, her track record speaks for itself. The clip is hilarious. Well, except the spot where she almost drops Charlotte on her head. Where is Yumiko Hotta when we need her ?

Empowerrred was really cool and totally overdelivered. Then again, it was much more of an interpromotional card. 73 was meh. Speaks volume about the level of traction NWA has when the "big" surprise of the battle royal was.... Murphy. From Gunner & Murphy of TNA fame. Yep. Tyrus, harrasment rumors aside, is absolutely worthless. Chris Adonis, for all the hype about him becoming that really good worker over the years, strikes me as the best and less roided Warlord circa 91 ever. Nick Aldis is doing way to much straight Ric Flair cosplay spots (Nick Aldis runs to the top rope to get thrown off, Nick Aldis gets put into the figure four, Nick Aldis pushes the ref and gets pushed back) and apart from that really isn't a very compelling worker. The main event was quite ok in the end, although it went from said Flair match cosplay to a Sabu-esque spot in quite a confusing moment, but I wasn't very impressed with Trevor Murdoch either (and really, paying hommage to a guy who was rumored to have at least sympathies for the KKK strikes me as pretty tone deaf in 2021, then again his whole family got me "White Lives Matter" vibes, but it's just me being an asshole here ). Best match to me was Mickie James vs Kylie Ray (damn, if she can get her mental balance, I'd love to see her back in IMPACT, she's got so much talent), and the post-match of Deonna attacking James was exactly what I hoped for. This is your Bound for Glory title match, hopefully. Ric Flair cut a rambling promo putting over Vince, HHH, Shawn & Taker for picking him up when he was down but also talking about pro-wrestling needed a place like this and like AEW for guys to work everywhere (he also mentioned having dinner with Tony Khan soon, so don't be surprised when he shows up in AEW soon) and really it was kinda fun to see Ric "free at last". He also thanked his family for putting up with him being the NWA champ and his current wife (several times), so there's that. In the end, it was a cool moment. Empowerred like I said was cool as fuck. Some matches looked a bit rough around the edges, but Deonna Purrazzo vs Melina had no right to be as good as it was (really now, Deonna is that good), Kamille vs Leila Hirsch was quite the big vs small match and I thought Leila looked terrific there (the Kamille vs Chelsea Green match the next day was nowhere near as good), Red Velvet & Kylinn King were on fire in the tag tournament and Allysin Kay is also someone I always really enjoy to watch (Marti Belle being just that, although she does work hard). Cool appearance by Madusa. But the killer to me was Awesome Kong saving Gail Kim from Taryn Terell (btw, she looks terrific in her role, she's someone WWE would jump on today, but I guess she's a "been there done that" case, I wouldn't mind seeing more of her in IMPACT, damn) and her croonies, in what seems to be Awesome Kong final farewell to pro-wrestling. Tears were flowing and really these two should get a ton of credit because they were US women pro-wrestling "revolution" back in 2007, Gail especially is a worker that should get way more credit than she does (Kong too, but she really did not had the best career after her first TNA stint, too bad GLOW wasn't renewed because she killed it in that too). That was pretty damn awesome, no pun intended. Debbie Malenko looked rusty as hell, but who will blame her, I hope she gets more booking and we see more of her, her comeback is so cool anyways. All in all, a terrific feel good show that way overdelivered (I really wasn't expecting much from the card on paper) and was another instance of pro-wrestling being so fun in 2021.

The production footage at the end is insane. Also, it's so neat from AEW to dig some old IWA Winnipeg footage to build the Christian Cage vs Kenny Omega match. Of course the story is pro-wrestling bullshit, but it's neat nonetheless that they are tying up the whole story with actual stuff from 25 years ago that actually happened in an indy promotion in Canada. The Callis footage from back then is quite the visual too ! Funny how I was a fan of Callis when he was the Jackyl in WWF and thought he would be like this main event evil manager back then, and here we are in 2021 and he is this all-time great promo heel manager alongside the greatest workers of this generation (and all, yes sir) in the hottest promotion in, well, 25 years more or less.

Just like I don't remember specifics of shitty WWE feuds, I don't remember specifics of Cena's intimate life ! Same thing. Girlfriend, wife, whatever. Same thing to me. (Hey, at least that constitues some common ground between John Cena and myself : no marriage, no kids, thank you very much )

I wonder how much of "How the hell is he dating Brie Bella ? He shouldn't be dating the twin sister of Big John Cena's wife !" played into Vince's sick psyche... Don't tell me it never played a part. You know it did.

Forgot about the specifics, but like you said it was shit anyway. Danielson feuding with the fucking Miz was a sad joke. The Miz is probably everything wrong about modern WWE style pro-wrestling. He was tolerable for two minutes when he had Maryse at his side (the Lance Storm Theory) and feuding with Cena & Nikki, but that's about it. Danielson making a comeback should have been shot right at the top of the card like a super special attraction if they were afraid for his health. The fact he made a comeback in a tag match with Shane McMahon totally deflated anything special about him from the first minute. I sure hope Roman tweets something about Daniel Bryan being a B+ player for real just before he debuts for AEW. Then let's unbox the ratings together...

aka : they didn't do half as they should have. DB should have been the Man. That is a fact, he was over to that degree. No matter his injuries. Steve Austin got the most over during the period where it was not even a sure thing he could ever work again. His comeback fizzled out super quickly, he ended up "just another guy" in no time. Sure, he worked his magic at Mania to put over Kofi Kingston, which in the grand scheme of things meant exactly zilch (and why would it, Kofi was never a main event talent to begin with, not even at a Jeff Jarrett level) and then what ? The pro-wrestling audience wanted Daniel Bryan in the mid 10's. Even after WWE finally gave in (and reprogrammed their own collective brain into thinking *they* got him over), his first feud as a world champion was against fucking Kane, a feud where he, as a babyface, was running away from the monster, letting his girlfriend alone at danger. That was the genius booking of Daniel Bryan *before* he had that "career ending injury". The fact Daniel Bryan & CM Punk reached their prime during the WWE monopoly is really shitty timing.

Just this : sign Kiera Hogan already ! I was glad she got to be on TV for Punk's debut, even if that was to be squashed by Jade.

Some people who got there at first will get phased out and not get renewed. I mean, Joey Janela really hasn't made any stride at all apart from that one crazy match with Omega. Thankfully Big Swole has vanished into Dark obscurity. I doubt we're gonna get that much of Kip Sabian in the future. And hopefully total failed project like The Acclaimed are gonna vanish (Caster sucks, the other guy is decent enough). There is gonna be a turn over and some people are gonna end up on the indies again. They won't keep everyone, they just can't. Great new young guys like Dante Martin and Daniel Garcia are gonna jump above guys I just mentioned, hell, they already have.

Funny, I have thought about that one for a while now. WWE would kill for a guy like this. But of course the scripted promos would rob him of everything that makes MJF to begin with. Plus he doesn't have the physical frame they are looking for. But I agree this is one guy WWE will probably throw stupid money at and I would not be surprised to see him eventually main event Mania one day (that is, unless WWE keeps on being their old stupid selves).

Didn't think about it, but yep, that one makes sense. Unless Tony Khan throws money to have a last Hardy reunion in AEW against the Young Bucks.

If Alberto wasn't such a piece of shit he would have been brought back too, but he's about a JBL level act anyway. There's nobody left. They have made no one. The only two guys from the past 10 years who could have been huge are CM Punk & Brian Danielson. Wooops.

Rumors. Ya know the deal. They even made fun of it in BTE. Then again, Cody hasn't been on BTE for ever now. Cardona is also having a blast on IMPACT with his girlfriend. It took some time, but he sure seems happy to do different things now. Black is way sooner to even think about what he may do. He was completely wasted in WWE. He can be a big star in AEW. He's not the type of guy Vince & Co understand or want anymore anyway. If Bray Wyatt makes it to the company and doesn't set the world on fire, he definitely has the profile to go back to familiar grounds. As far as Adam Cole goes, I know people on this board can't stand him apparently, I think I've seen exactly ONE match of his a few years back and it was a great one, he sure knows how to get over and has the profile and background (Bullet Club Babay) so he's probably fitting the bill. It would not be even close to Punk or Danielson of course, but yet another sign of the dynamic in place, basically the Ace of NXT for the last few years graduating... to the opposition.

From Vince's perspective ? No. The WWE is idiot proof financially at this point. Vince is dying a billionnaire (you're the richest guy from the cemetery, congrats, you're still dead) and his children and grandchildren can live the spoiled brats life without even thinking about it, especially if they sell to Disney or whomever. From the workers and audience's perspective, of course. Because it has made the product totally sterilized (with the stupidest booking this side of WCW 1999) and they haven't made ONE legit star since 2005 and they have wasted dozens of great talents in the process.